Today's players carry and palm during the dribble and can place their hands anywhere on the ball at any time with an extremely gratuitous amount of hesitations. It requires skill to do, yes, but it's only a skill you can develop if the league allows it. The rules of the game have been heavily bent the past 50 years to allow the kind of dribbling "skill" we see today.

In the 50's and even well into the 1980's players were taught to dribble "palms down" and this was a rule that was once strictly enforced. It loosened up a little in the 60's, and a little more in the 70's especially with the ABA where visual entertainment and style became a premium to keep that league afloat, and during the tail end of the Jordan era coming into the Iverson / Kobe era virtually all the old fashioned dribble rules were basically thrown into the bushes for a more entertaining brand of basketball that showcased individualism and iso style over the more complicated and mundane looking team style ball that involved screen setting, pick and rolls, etc. Showcasing 1 man at a time is more fan friendly. This is why the modern game is all about superstars carrying teams and why modern players appear more fluid and can dribble in 3 dimensions - where as those 50's and early 60's players basically dribble one dimensional. The game back then wasn't catered to taking your man off the dribble.